Sunday, September 02, 2007

What I've been up to

Well, time flies, we had a rough July, with one of the girls a bit sick through the first weeks and the holidays, and then they both had a cold, finally they are both back at school, and seemingly happy.

I have managed to finally get my Job Search Training as mandated by Centrelink (thank you mr howard. NOT!) for all parents whose kids are 8 by July 2007... I actually managed to enjoy it (my JST trainer was a lovely woman).The first job I applied for sounded very interesting, making use of my computer (Word, Excel) skills and my long ago acquired maths and stats skills (and I mean long ago, when I was in University, in the 80s!).Anyway, went to the interview on the 23rd August, and felt really good when I left, you know, when you think you couldn't have done it better except if you stayed up all night studying!! I was in there quite a long time, we talked about my qualifications and what the job entails, and then he put me to the test, and I felt good about what I'd done, even if there are a few things I didn't know, or I was rusty with...

I walked back to the school that day, it's a 20 minute walk downhill (also a 16 minute walk to our house, I suspect)... It's a 10 minute walk from the bus which comes by our house (so about 15-30 minutes to get to work depending when the bus comes) and there's another bus which services this area which goes right by our school, so I can hop on and go to work after I drop off the girls, and back on to pick them up at the end of the day. Not to mention that DH might be able to drop me off some mornings or pick me up too!

Friday, (31 August) when we came back from Rolloways, there was an email waiting for me with a letter of offer. I start next week! I'm pretty excited. First application, first interview, and I nail the job! and it's an interesting one!! Yay!!!

They are quite flexible with kids being sick (I made it really clear that I was a mother FIRST, and that since we have no support network/extended family, that when the kids are sick, I stay home with them, unless, of course, DH has a day off or no jobs to do that day, which can happen). It's only 8 hours per week at the moment but I'm hoping I can increase my hours at some point to 15 hours to keep Centrelink happy. In the mean time I'm looking for a 7h/week job ;) (btw, if you know anyone who needs data entry in Word, Excel, or such programs, or typing, or simple web design... that could be fun! Preferably something I can do from home.)

What else, oh, right, since it's a "back of the house" type of job, I can wear what I want pretty much, which is great as with my feet hurting, I have to wear my Crocs, and they don't look great with stockings and business skirts! But they have helped my feet tremendously.

Yeah, so anyway, the job... it's basically preparing soil samples, from future mine sites or mines I suspect, for analysis by laboratories, so it involves some Excel work, some Word knowledge and some labelling, and putting dirt in little jars! I'm going to have fun.

Now onto my feet, well, I finally had time (took the time?) to get my feet Xray-ed and ultrasound-ed and I have heel spurs, probably caused by plantar fasciitis ... so now my first course of action will be cortisone as it's the cheapest quickest solution, though my sister suggested a REIKI treatment, so I might do that first, I don't like the idea of needles in my heels, but if the cortisone and/or REIKI don't work I will look into therapies such as acupuncture (my doc says it might work but it can't be guaranteed to work, and at $60 per treatment, I might need 4 or more... so I think the cheap solution first is the way to go), if acunpucture doesn't work, then we might have to look into getting them ultrasound-blasted (something like that, maybe there's some laser therapy involved, I hvaen't looked into it really yet but I have heard of someone who did that and it worked a charm, of course, it's the most expensive solution), or I could learn to walk on my hands :) I wanted to scan my Xray as it's a nice pair of spurs but it didn't work... probably better that way, it's a bit freakish! :)

So, life is going to get busy, and until I learn how to juggle, I think this blog will take a back seat, as will my craft, for a while anyway! If I make anything, it will be on this page at the Krafty Lady website.

This is a piece which is not on the KL Website:

I will have a piece in an issue of Altered Arts in 2008, I'm very excited about it. It makes use of Krafty Lady moulds and Sculpey Ultralight. I'll leave it at that for now!

Hi France,Congrats on the job, sounds like fun and a relaxed work environment is always good :) Glad you can wear your crocs!How's the MYOB going? It's not soooo bad is it..lolSad to hear you won't be creating as much, always love to see what you've been doing. Stop in and say hello next time you are in freo.Oh, I put a link to your blog on mine too - hope that's ok? Would love a link on yours if you like to also.Keep putting that dirt in jars!! LOLHave fun,Lorri